Cigarettes are typically packaged in soft or hard box type containers having lots of twenty cigarettes in each container. It is generally necessary for the user to separately carry matches or a mechanical cigarette lighter. The user is put to inconvenience if he has neglected to carry matches or a lighter at the time consumption of a cigarette is desired.
There have been several suggestions for combining matches in a cigarette container to provide a self-contained complete smoking product. U.S. Pat. No. 4,962,850 discloses a cigarette container in the form of a flip top box having a pair of spaced flaps to which are attached a plurality of book type matches. A disadvantage to this design is that it necessary to strike the match with the flip top open, thereby creating a hazard of inadvertently igniting the rest of the matches and the stock of cigarettes.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,046,252 and 4,836,366 followed a different approach and provide an attachment means or a strip housing for affixing a pack of book matches to the exterior of a cigarette container. The cigarette can be lit without fire hazard; however, the uneven and nonconventional thickness of the container makes it impossible to manufacture in an integral piece and creates problems in adapting the container to standard vending machines. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,015,769 and 4,887,771 depart even further from conventional cigarette container construction in that the overall size, dimensions, number and orientation of folding steps, are not amenable to high speed, fully automated, and standardized packaging equipment.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,728 a cigarette container is disclosed having an inner and outer envelope forming at the base, a compartment with an opening into which may be reversibly and removably inserted a drawer suitable for containing individual matches. The container has the advantage of having uniform dimensions, safety of use, and simplicity of construction. It has the disadvantages of opening only on one side, and requiring a wasteful duplication of construction material forming the walls of both inner and outer envelopes extending well over 50 percent of the surface of the container.